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by reinventweather (theadmiral)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-12
Updated: 2012-11-12
Packaged: 2017-12-04 07:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theadmiral/pseuds/reinventweather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Avatar Kyoshi visits her hometown for the first time in a long time.</p><p>I wrote this for Papipalooka as a part of Avatar Ladyfest 2012.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [Papipalooka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papipalooka/gifts).



> I want ladies being best friends to be my best friend.

_It’s not that different_ , Kyoshi tries to convince herself, feet dangling in the water. The blue water of the sea is cold against her skin, cold and- and- nope, nothing. Kyoshi sighs. _You grew up with water on three sides. Stop acting like you’re a land-locked Ba Sing Se rich girl that wouldn’t know what to do if a fish hooked her line._ But again, nothing - well, nothing but a headache and something that might be akin to seasickness.  
  
Kyoshi stands up and makes her way back to her parents’ house. It’s not her house anymore; it hasn’t been for a long time. As soon as the peninsula discovered she was destined to be the next Avatar, a grouchy old man came down to cart her up to Ba Sing Se, where she would grow up being taught the issues of the world. And it’s been twelve years since then (two years since she started her bending training). It’s not that she expected her parents to spend the rest of their lives thinking about her. _I didn’t_ , she tells herself. That doesn’t change the fact that she has to share a room with her two younger sisters when she visits, a room that used to be all her own.

“Hey! Kyo!” shouts someone behind her. _No one’s called me that since..._

“Koko!” Kyoshi calls back, turning to face the young woman who used to be her best friend. Kyo and Ko, they used to call themselves, before Kyoshi’s life changed that fateful morning. She hurries toward Koko and embraces her. “How are you? I haven’t heard from you since my last visit.”

“Oh, good, good,” Koko replies, a hand on her stomach. “Got married, having a baby, you know. Nothing special.” Her laughter reaches her eyes when Kyoshi’s jaw drops open.

“You? Really? Growing up, I never would have guessed you would be the one starting a family,” Kyoshi counters. Kyoshi had always been the boy-crazy one between the two of them. Koko didn’t hold with such nonsense, preferring to explore the town and once they got older, the sea as well, chasing elephant koi like they would be able to do something once they caught one. Koko was always coming up with stories - they were pirates, they were soldiers, they were highway robbers. They were anything and everything they could possibly wanted to be. There was one time they played Avatar, even. They fought over who would be Avatar Yangchen and who would be Avatar Kuruk (Koko won and got to be Yangchen, of course; Koko always won).

“You and me both, Kyo,” Koko replies, taking Kyoshi’s hand in hers. “But there aren’t many other choices, way out here next to the South Sea. Not like Ba Sing Se. Tell me about it?”

*

Kyoshi ends up having dinner that evening with Koko and her husband. She tells them stories of Ba Sing Se, of the bending masters and her training, and after a few glasses of sake, of the places you can go in the city to get whatever you want, no questions asked, and the trouble that causes. After a few hours of chatting, Koko’s husband excuses himself down to the tavern, citing plans with his fellow fishermen, leaving the two ( _former?_ , Kyoshi asks herself) best friends alone. Before long, the sake is gone and they’ve moved over to the sleeping mat, stretched out, half on top of each other.

“I can’t believe you’re married,” Kyoshi says after a moment’s silence. “And having a baby. I thought for sure you’d be the one living in Ba Sing Se with a different date every night of the week.”

“You and me both, Kyo,” Koko responds quietly. Kyoshi doesn’t know what to say to that, so she picks at the threads on the sleeve of her green kimono. _It isn’t fair,_ she thinks. _Koko would have made a great Avatar, and instead everyone’s stuck with me. I can’t even water-bend yet._ Kyoshi notices she’s been clenching her teeth (she’s been doing that a lot lately) and forces herself to relax her muscles, her thoughts, her worries.

“What’s the matter?” Koko asks, stroking her hand through Kyoshi’s hair. _Kok_ _o could always read me better than anyone._

“Nothing really, I-” Kyoshi stops. “I can’t waterbend. Just...can’t. No matter what I do, nothing happens. I shouldn’t be the Avatar.”

There. She’s said it, what she’s been thinking for months now. Avatars master all _four_ elements, and she’s only good at one and passing at two.

Koko pulls gently on Kyoshi’s hair. “Stop that. You’re the Avatar, there’s no ‘should’ about it.” Koko sits up, facing Kyoshi. “Do you know what I would give to be able to do half the things you’ve already done? It's not the bending or the training really, that I would give or take, but you can go anywhere, do anything."

"But-" Kyoshi starts. "It's not like I can just do anything I want. I'm the Avatar, I belong to the people."

"And I'm going to be a mother, I'll belong to my children." Koko purses her lips. "No one's free of responsibility, Kyo. And the more the responsibility, the more the opportunities.”

Koko pauses. Kyoshi doesn’t say anything.

“I’m excited to start a family, don’t get me wrong. And I’m glad I’m not leaving, really. It’s my home, way down here, far away from anything. My parents are here; my life is here. Sometimes I just wish that there was something I could do, other than be a mother and a wife.”

Kyoshi doesn’t know what to say to that; she’s never felt stuck on their little peninsula. But then again, she never had the chance to be. She was taken to Ba Sing Se long before she would have gotten sick of the place. To her, the little village was akin to freedom; to Koko, it meant captivity.

Koko brings up an older boy in the village - now a married man - that Kyoshi used to swoon over, and just like that, the moment is gone. Before too long, Koko complains that the baby needs so much sleep, and Kyoshi takes that as her cue to excuse herself and head back to her parents’ house.

The wind from the ocean chills Kyoshi during her walk home. She had forgotten how cold it gets at night, here. But the stars more than make up for it. She loops around the village a few times, looking at the sky.

*

Kyoshi wakes up late the next morning and has to frantically pack all the things she’s accumulated during her week here before the caravan comes to pick her up and take her back to the city. She surreptitiously leaves the doll her baby sister insisted she take with her, but takes the home-made shell jewelry, wrapping it in an old shirt.

Her escorts arrive sooner rather than later, and Kyoshi has to rush through her goodbyes, quick hugs and kisses to her sisters and parents. The carriage (really, it's just a cart with a roof) is small; her knees press up against the opposite bench. She looks out the window as they pass through the town and can’t help but think of Koko: Koko, who has only known this, the tiny shops and the small houses, the dock full of fishermen’s boats, the old peddler (even old when Kyoshi still lived there) and his cart of cabbages.

"I can't believe people actually live here," one of the Earth Kingdom soldiers mumbles outside her window. A fierce sense of indignation rises up in Kyoshi before she can even wonder whether the soldier can hear her.

"This is the home of the Avatar," she calls back to him. "Treat it with the respect it deserves." He murmurs his assent before riding up to the front of the caravan. Kyoshi sits back as they head away from the town and watches it get smaller and smaller. _It's true, you know,_ says the voice in her head. _The home of the Avatar._ Kyoshi had spent the last twelve years trying to distance herself from the small southern village, but maybe it's Ba Sing Se she should distance herself from.

Because here were her parents, her sisters. Koko, too, and the places she spent her time before she became Avatar Kyoshi. Here, she could be Kyoshi, not the savior of mankind. Here, she was more than her bending abilities; she was everything else.

Maybe this town was home after all.


End file.
